Transforming Historical Objectivism into Historical Hermeneutics: From "Historical Illness" to Properly Lived Historicality

The present study analyses recent criticisms against the use of modern-historical methodologies in Biblical Studies. These methodologies abstract from the historical horizon of the researcher. In order to relate properly to the historicality of the researcher, historical objectivism needs to be tran...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tops, Thomas 1988- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter [2019]
In: Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie
Year: 2019, Volume: 61, Issue: 4, Pages: 490-515
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Biblical studies / Historical criticism / Historicism / Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1900-2002 / Historicity / Reader-response criticism
IxTheo Classification:HA Bible
VB Hermeneutics; Philosophy
Further subjects:B Historizität
B historische Hermeneutik
B Historical criticism
B Historical Criticism
B Historicality
B Rezeptionsgeschichte
B Historical Hermeneutics
B Gadamer
B Reception History
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Summary:The present study analyses recent criticisms against the use of modern-historical methodologies in Biblical Studies. These methodologies abstract from the historical horizon of the researcher. In order to relate properly to the historicality of the researcher, historical objectivism needs to be transformed into historical hermeneutics. Recent developments in the historical methodology of biblical scholars are unable to reckon with the historicality of the researcher due to the partial or incorrect implementation of Gadamer's views on reception history. I analyse the views of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Gadamer on historicality and contend that the study of reception history is a necessary condition for conducting historical study from within the limits of our historicality. Reception history should not be a distinct methodological step to study the "Nachleben" of biblical texts, but needs to clarify how the understanding of these texts is already effected by their history of interpretation. The awareness of the presuppositions that have guided previous interpretations of biblical texts enables us to be confronted by their alterity. This confrontation calls for a synthesis between reception-historical and historical-critical methodology that introduces a new paradigm for conducting historical study in Biblical Studies in dialogue with other theological disciplines.
ISSN:1612-9520
Contains:Enthalten in: Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/nzsth-2019-0025